


Crash Years

by stardropdream



Category: Gakuen Tokkei DUKLYON | Duklyon: Clamp School Defenders
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 09:56:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The way Kentarou gets to take Takeshi on a date without Takeshi realizing it's a date.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crash Years

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to LJ March 3, 2011.

  
  
Cross-company talks, Takeshi decided, were useless and irritating in their tedium. It wasn’t the first time he’d decided this, but every time Kentarou’s company met with another company over possible mergers, joint projects, and convention displays, Takeshi was reminded, rather bitterly, of just how much he despised it. Particularly whenever someone, foolishly, gave Kentarou leave to speak and the idiot would ramble on for hours about all these cute things the company could do to improve their image among the youth and future investors.   
  
Kentarou, Takeshi could admit to himself, if only once in a blue moon and in a fleeting image that lasted only about three seconds—Kentarou, at least, wasn’t pushy and rude and filled the conference room with the smell of cheap coffee and an overabundance of aftershave.   
  
It was hardly an endorsement, though, Takeshi thought bitterly, as he watched Kentarou ramble on. Kentarou was not such a high step up from pushy-rude-smelly businessmen. Knowing Kentarou, though, he’d take it as a proclamation of love and continue on that foolish joke he’d been keeping up since high school. It was nothing short of miraculous that he hadn’t shoved Kentarou out of the top-story window yet. (He told himself it was because Erii would kill him soon afterward for dissembling the team in such an unheroic manner. And possibly add something about how it was _her_ job to issue the violence, not Takeshi’s. In any case, it was stupid and Takeshi felt he wasn’t congratulated nearly enough for his patience.)   
  
Takeshi had put up with the potential merger meeting all day, cramped and crammed into the tiny conference room with no windows and a dozen men in suits surrounding the table Kentarou now stood at the head of, rambling on happily. These men seemed to ceaselessly strive to piss Takeshi off, though, really, they probably hadn’t really noticed Takeshi—standing at the back of the room with the notepad to take notes on. They just constantly interrupted Kentarou without so much as a “please” or “if it’s at all possible, that is.” And Kentarou was going on as if life were fucking peaches and he didn’t realize that people were disrespecting him.   
  
Idiot or not, nobody disrespected a damned president. Idiot or not, it was Takeshi’s job to disrespect him. Everybody else could kindly sit the hell down and shut the hell up.   
  
Takeshi scribbled across his notepad, trying to keep his mind off it when he felt a spike of anger in his gut.   
  
To add to all the misery and annoyance of his day, Takeshi’s pants were itchy. That was the last time he ever tried to wear wool trousers. They’d been pleasant on the ride over to the office this morning, when it was cold and a little breezy. But now, after being crammed in a stuffy room for hours on end, Takeshi had to use all his will power not to scratch at his knee or something. It was unbearable, like a million little insects were biting at his skin.   
  
It was almost early evening now, and there was absolutely nothing about the meeting that had been successful—no one could agree on anything, or no one could get Kentarou to stop talking about panda slides or whatever he was on about then. Takeshi thought to himself that he really needed a drink—and he never drank if he could help it, especially since Kentarou had a tendency to stick to him like glue whenever he attempted to have a moment alone. The last thing he needed or wanted was a drunk—or even slightly tipsy—or even _completely sober_ —Kentarou announcing to the bar that Takeshi was his lover forever and ever.   
  
“That’s enough,” he said, loudly, practically shouted—it took a few more repetitions of that phrase and a very hearty fist slam against the wall before the men looked up, some with looks of disdain that he would dare interrupt. “This is getting us nowhere.”   
  
Kentarou beamed, and started to say, “Well, that’s because we’re still trying to agree to something, lo—”  
  
Takeshi cut him off quickly before he could embarrass both of them in front of future corporation partners. “They won’t agree to anything, because your suggestions are fanciful at best and destructive at worst! And you won’t agree to anything, because their demands are ridiculous at best and insulting at worst!”   
  
There was a drop of silence after Takeshi shouted this out and he momentarily wondered if he’d overstepped his bounds—maybe he shouldn’t have insulted the president in front of another company—  
  
“Mine aren’t that fanciful,” Kentarou protested, with a playful little pout.   
  
“They are,” Takeshi said, firmly, lip curling up in distaste. It was late. He wanted to get home, and he wanted to change out of his damned wool pants and damn anyone who ever suggested their ease and versatility again. “We refuse. They refuse. We can do this again tomorrow with more sense and decorum. Got it?”   
  
Again, he debated that perhaps he was overstepping his bounds. But, then again, Kentarou was grinning at him as if Takeshi had just proposed, so for all Takeshi knew, he could get a huge bonus and then finally quit this damned job and never have to see Kentarou again—barring Duklyon battles, which did not count. He was supposed to be in management, not taking notes as _Kentarou’s_ secretary.   
  
The men from the other company looked like they were about to protest, so Takeshi pointed closed his notepad, stomped his way over to Kentarou, grabbed him by the collar, and started to drag him forcefully from the room.  
  
“This meeting,” he said, practically kicking the door open. “Is over.”   
  
As soon as they were out of the meeting room, Takeshi released Kentarou’s collar—after quickly adjusting it so the idiot would look presentable and not have an upturned collar—and then stomped away down the hallway. He was about halfway towards the elevators before Kentarou had bounded up next to him, grinning like it was his birthday and he’d just gotten the best present ever. Takeshi’s eyebrow twitched.   
  
“Takepon,” Kentarou practically sang.  
  
“I don’t care,” Takeshi interrupted before Kentarou could keep going, staring with longing at the elevator and wishing that he could just have a silent ride down. Alone.   
  
“You protected my honor back there,” Kentarou continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted and oh god there were sparkles in his eyes. “What a good future hus—”  
  
“Idiot! Shut up! It’d just be bad if the company I worked for got the sour end of a deal!” Takeshi shouted, feeling prickly and unpleasant and god his legs still itched—damned pants.   
  
“But Takepon—”  
  
Oh god, there was a hand on his shoulder. Takeshi shook off Kentarou’s hand and practically punched the down button for the elevator. He stared at the doors, as if that would will the elevator to open faster, all the while Kentarou was babbling happily beside him. Takeshi did his best to ignore him, he really did, but after years of knowing Kentarou, there were key words that always made his ears prick up again. Things like weddings and marriage and good lovers and blushing brides—  
  
“Will you _shut up_?” Takeshi shouted.   
  
The elevator opened and Takeshi stomped inside, and Kentarou followed after him grinning and calling Takeshi something stupid like _such a good guy_ or whatever else Kentarou called him whenever Takeshi was making clear he didn’t want anything to do with Kentarou.   
  
Takeshi was starting to think maybe he really did need that drink.   
  
But then Kentarou was draping himself over Takeshi’s shoulders and Takeshi was bristling up and digging his elbow into Kentarou’s gut. The elevator’s doors opened and Takeshi stormed away, walking briskly towards the exit and, blissfully, the cool night air that started to relieve the itchiness in his pants.   
  
Kentarou, naturally, was striding along beside him, grinning.   
  
“Do you mind?” Takeshi muttered, and turned to snap a glare at Kentarou who, as always, blatantly ignored it. “I’ve had enough of your face for one day.”  
  
Or, he uncharitably thought, the rest of his life.   
  
Kentarou, as always, either chose to ignore his suggestion or completely ignored it because he wanted to. He was grinning and walking beside him and if Takeshi walked any faster, he’d be running.   
  
“Why are you in such a hurry?” Kentarou asked, laughing. “I hope you aren’t being unfaithful and going on a da—”  
  
“I said GO AWAY,” Takeshi shouted, feeling his face heat up despite himself.   
  
“Where are you going, though?” Kentarou insisted.   
  
“I’m getting dinner,” Takeshi muttered. “And then I’m going home.” He eyed Kentarou and _hated_ that he felt the need to add, “Alone.”   
  
Kentarou was laughing, though, like he hadn’t heard Takeshi’s addendum.   
  
The evening air was refreshing, at least.   
  
It would have been better if Kentarou _wasn’t_ there laughing in his ear like some damned lo—  
  
He told himself not to finish that thought.   
  
“I bet you’re going to go to some bad place for a fast dinner,” Kentarou lamented, sighing dramatically. He dusted off Takeshi’s shoulders, clamping down hard so that Takeshi’s speeding pace of a walk jerked to a sudden halt. “No, no, we can’t have that. I’ll take you somewhere nice, Takepon!”   
  
“I don’t want—”  
  
But Kentarou was laughing and dialing his phone to call his limousine and Takeshi wanted to kill himself.   
  
It took a few minutes—cheerful on Kentarou’s part, devastating on Takeshi’s—before the car pulled around and Kentarou was forcefully shoving Takeshi into through the door, grinning the entire time as he chatted amiably with the driver holding the door open for them. Kentarou told him the name of some restaurant that Takeshi didn’t catch and Takeshi, once again, wished he could just crash his way through the window and make a mad dash for the back alleys. But knowing Kentarou, he’d just chase after him like it was some game.  
  
Takeshi hated his life sometimes. He slumped in his seat.  
  
“Hey, hey, Takepon, you look relaxed!” Kentarou said, grinning.  
  
Takeshi straightened his posture at once.   
  
“Don’t worry,” Kentarou said with a sigh, “I know that you aren’t financially stable yet, so this meal will be on me.”  
  
“I’m not—shut up!” Takeshi shouted.   
  
He mulled around in silence. It wouldn’t be so bad, probably. He already spent every waking moment with Kentarou, practically, so having dinner with him wouldn’t be horrible. Especially if it was free. And especially if he could maybe get a drink out of it, after all.   
  
The restaurant, of course, ended up being a karaoke bar. There were already a few middle-aged men in suits near the stage, drunk, and singing along to their fellow businessmen singing some song in English that Takeshi couldn’t understand around the slur of his lyrics. Takeshi’s eyebrow twitched once and then he turned around and was preparing himself to cheerfully strangle Kentarou, but Kentarou was already looming a little coo close, grinning, his eyes alight.   
  
“I want to hear Takepon sing!”  
  
“Not on your life,” Takeshi shouted above the thrilling crescendo the man on stage was delivering, complete with bended knees and a rush of emotional turmoil in his warbling voice. That, or he was about to vomit. Takeshi couldn’t be sure.   
  
“But Takepooooooon, there aren’t that many karaoke places anymore that aren’t just a room! With this one, you get to sing to the whole bar!” Kentarou whined. “It’ll be fun.”  
  
“I need a drink,” Takeshi announced, stomping towards the back of the room and plopping down at a table. “And food.”  
  
“You got it, lover,” Kentarou chirped, and wandered away to place some orders.   
  
Takeshi nearly slammed his face down onto the table and, not for the first time, debated running away. But Kentarou was paying. So it couldn’t be that bad. A few hours at most. And he would absolutely not sing. Maybe the evening wouldn’t be so horrendous, after all.  
  
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Takeshi reminded himself that he really shouldn’t count on that.   
  
Kentarou came back, grinning, carrying a pitcher of beer and two cups.   
  
“Your food’ll be here soon. Don’t worry, I got you something nice,” Kentarou said with a smile as he set the two glasses down and filled Takeshi’s glass for him. He even had the gall to blush, like it was some romantic thing that he was serving Takeshi. Takeshi yanked the pitcher from him and filled Kentarou’s glass because, damn it, the idiot should drink, too. Maybe it’d mellow him out. Or maybe him worse, Takeshi thought grimly.   
  
The man at the microphone was wandering away amongst claps from the other patrons in the bar, and the middle-aged men were goading one another to go up next. While they bickered, a foreign tourist got on stage and introduced himself, and began to sing the English song horribly, but at least with better precision of language.   
  
Takeshi, once again, debated leaving. But then again, he had a drink, and food was on its way. He took a long drink, and felt infinitely better.   
  
  
\---  
  
  
Takeshi was _not_ drunk. He wasn’t. He’d told himself only to drink until the pitcher was gone.   
  
But then Kentarou had bought another.   
  
He wasn’t drunk. Maybe a little tipsy. Kentarou was flushed, but also relatively sober. They were tottering out of the bar together after a few pitchers of beer, Kentarou laughing about Takeshi being a lightweight—which he was NOT—and wrapping his arm around his waist to support him. It was only to help him walk, Takeshi reminded himself, there was nothing romantic about it.   
  
He didn’t need the support, though. He could walk fine. He suspected that Kentarou was just taking advantage of the situation, but at the same time he was too tired to protest.   
  
Kentarou drove him back to his apartment, even got out of the limo to walk Takeshi to his door, and as Takeshi fiddled around trying to find his keys, Kentarou touched a hand to his elbow. He kept trying to shove the key into the lock, brow furrowed. But Kentarou jarred him with the simple touch.   
  
Takeshi gave him a dark look. “What now?”  
  
“I just wanted to say it was a really nice date, Takepon,” Kentarou said, laughing. “And even though I really want to kiss you right now, we’ve had too much to drink so it wouldn’t be good for you to take advantage of me, no matter how much you wanted to kiss me back.”  
  
“What are—” Takeshi began, mind too boggled to quite grasp what the idiot was talking about.   
  
But before he could finish the sentence, Kentarou was leaning in and kissing his cheek and stepping back. He waved, and Takeshi felt the door finally give away in his hand and the door swing open to his apartment.   
  
“See you tomorrow, Takepon,” Kentarou said. “I’ll make you breakfast, okay?”   
  
“Whatever,” Takeshi muttered and walked into his apartment, slammed the door shut, and crashed onto his bed—falling asleep almost instantly after lying his head on the pillow. He forgot to change out of his itchy pants, but he’d remember to in a few hours when he would wake up, perfectly sober, and remember he had to kill Kentarou.


End file.
